What a season for Danny Stewart’s Nottingham Panthers; a third-place finish in the Elite League, semi-finalists in the Challenge Cup, and, this past weekend, the 2025 Play-Off winners.

It was to be a weekend which would see four games, a shutout, and some thirty-four goals, with the Panthers winning both of theirs by a 4-3 scoreline; runners-up Cardiff Devils supplied the shut-out with a 5-0 win over Belfast Giants in the semis, and the Giants and Steelers put on the highest scoring game with fifteen, in an 8-7 third place success for the former.

As for the Panthers, they came into the play-offs following a third-place finish in the league, then seeing off Guildford Flames over two, exciting legs of ice hockey.

NIGHT ONE – RIVALS STEELERS OUSTED IN ARENA THRILLER

On the opening night, the Panthers would face-off against their rivals, and the Elite League runners-up, Sheffield Steelers, in front of a raucous home crowd; they were in for a treat.

Both sides had chances in the opening period of the contest, but it would be the Steelers who’d take the lead just before the end of the first period (18:43), Sam Tremblay firing past Jason Grande with a first-time effort.

The Steelers continued to up the ante as the contest wore on and, in the second period, doubled their advantage through Mitchell Balmas (34:13) on Grande’s near-side; a late powerplay from the Panthers though led to them halving that deficit after Cooper Zech and Mitch Fossier combined for Hugo Roy to net past Matthew Greenfield.

Early in the third period and Reid Stefanson levelled for the Panthers (42:00) after Davis Bunz had buzzed through the Steelers, gone round the Steelers net, and shot goalward; Fossier then gave the Panthers the lead (57:41) late on as he got on to a rebound from a Tim Doherty effort but the Steelers sent the tie to OT when Balmas saw his nudged into the net by Grande (58:39) shy of a minute later.

OT however was less than minute old when the Panthers won it, who else than captain Sam Herr, he getting on the end of great work from Matt Spencer and Kristoff Kontos, to book a place in the final dance of the season.

NIGHT TWO – HERR DOUBLES UP, BEFORE FOSSIER WINS IT FOR THE PANTHERS

After his heroics the previous night, sending the Panthers into the play-off final, captain Herr, in his last outing for the club, fired two early goals to send the Panthers Nation into raptures.

It would become a game that would go into a second OT, and see two goals disallowed, but the Panthers emerged victorious after Herr had put them a goal ahead after just eighty-one seconds, a shot from Cooper Zech being redirected past Cardiff Devils netminder, Ben Browns.

Herr (25:31) then doubled the Panthers’ advantage early in the second period when Kristoff Kontos and Tim Doherty linked up for their captain to net; prior to Herr’s second of the evening the Devils saw a double opportunity by Evan Mosey halted by netminder Grande.

The Panthers Nation were then sent into dreamland when seeing their side move into a three-goal lead as Fossier netted (27:50) on the rebound; then came the comeback.

Having put five without replay past the Elite League champions the previous night, the Devils finally got into the swing of things late in the second period when Kohen Olischefski (38:53) pulled one back.

The Devils turned up the pressure in the third period, sending the game into OT with goals from Joey Martin (49:11) and Gleason Fournier (56:13), before the first period of OT saw both the Panthers (Fossier) and Devils (Jarrod Gourley) have scores disallowed.

Danny Stewart’s hosts though continued to plough a play-off winning furrow and, in 2OT, finally found the decisive score, Zech setting up Fossier to beat Browns from close range to give the Panthers a stunning victory.

WHAT IT MEANT

Victory for the Nottingham Panthers was their first play-off success in nine years, the last coming in 2016; finishing third in the league’s regular season, saw them return to the top five after two years out, they having previously not finishing outside of the top five for the previous twenty seasons.

The party, it went into the night, as the Panthers players and staff appeared on the balcony of Bolero Square to take the plaudits, and adulation, of the Panthers Nation, they having turned out in force, like they have done all season long.

A note very much worth finishing on, amidst the Bolero Square celebrations, was that the jersey of fallen Panthers #47, Adam Johnson, was draped over the balcony in tribute to the ex-Nottingham Panthers players who passed away, aged 29 years, in October 2023.

He’ll never be forgotten, and this Nottingham Panthers squad, will no doubt go down in Panthers’ folklore; now though, they need to take stock, before building ahead of the 2025/26 season, and challenge for more silverware.

*Article provided by Peter Mann (Senior Correspondent).

*Main image @PanthersIHC the perfect end to a fabulous playoff winning season.